His Mark Upon My Life
by theladyingrey42
Summary: There is still a small shock and burst of pride in me when I realize what has happened. What I have allowed him to do to me. That I have allowed him to mark me." Entry for Slash/BackSlash contest. D/s, ExJ, AU/AH, OOC


_**SLASH BACKSLASH ONE-SHOT CONTEST**_

**Story Name: ****His Mark Upon My Life**

**Pen name: theladyingrey42**

**Pairing: Edward / Jasper**

**Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyers owns Twilight and it's characters.**

**Please note that this story includes BDSM and a fairly graphic D/s sex scene.**

**To see other entries in the "SLASH BACKSLASH" contest, please visit the C2: ****http ://www. fanfiction. net/c2/74941/3/0/1/**

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Thanks to antiaol for beta-ing, even though I break all of her rules. Thank you also to Mskathy and Ahelm for pre-reads.**

**In addition to being a submission for the SLASH BACKSLASH contest, this story is also a present for my dear friend bmango.**

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It is a position that is not unfamiliar to me - the cold air on my skin and the feel of leather on my chest as I straddle the chair. As the buzzing begins, I tell myself again that this is no different from any of the other times I have allowed myself to be exposed to him, given my body and my self to him.

Only never before have I done so so permanently. So visibly.

As always, I keep my eyes averted, my gaze low. Anticipating the pain, I meditate on his feet, repeatedly tracing the lines of his black leather shoes, meticulously polished to a low and glossy shine. In the reflections of the scattered lights around the studio, I imagine I can see his cool green eyes, alive with the fire he is possessed by whenever he knows he owns me. Whenever he knows my submission to his desires is complete.

"Jasper," he breathes, low and husky, the very sound of it awakening me from my reverie, instantly alert and ready to react in whatever way it is that he demands of me.

"Yes, Sir?"

"I do not usually grant opportunities for … reconsideration … but given the nature of what I have planned for you, in this one case I will make an exception. Answer me truthfully; you understand what you have agreed to?"

I gulp, brushing aside my hesitation, knowing full well how it will displease him. The tone of his voice, the haughty, domineering quality of it only reminds me of my vulnerability here.

But it is only my permission, my submission, that allows him to behave like this.

It is my submission that gives me power.

"Yes, Sir," I reply, a calm steadiness to my words that surprises even me.

The fire and the pride in his voice rages, as he whispers quietly, resonantly, "You have no idea how much you please me."

He breathes deeply in and out as the buzzing grows closer, a warm gloved hand settling in close to my spine. I hear his breathing stutter, one quick mutter of hesitation as he issues a single, final command.

"Look at me."

I raise my gaze immediately, reflexively, a learned behavior that comes as naturally to me now as breathing. The moment our eyes connect, I am struck all over again by the fire and intensity of his gaze, the depth of the burning green.

I feel myself flinching beneath his stare as the tattoo needle finally hits my skin, all my will bent hard on keeping myself from wincing or crying out or dropping the connection between our eyes. There is pain, yes, but nothing unbearable. Nothing worse than what I have experienced before.

"You bear my mark now, Jasper," he growls triumphantly, the spark of pride in his eyes growing into a raging fire, an inferno just barely controlled. "There can be no mistake to you or to anyone else now that you are mine.

"Tell me who owns you, Jasper."

The needle begins to move over one of my ribs and the pain takes me by surprise, making me wince as I rasp out, "You do."

He arches one eyebrow, giving me a rare second chance.

I curse myself silently as I suck in my breath.

"You do, _Sir_," I breathe.

And he smiles, a swell of pleasure singing through me to know that he is pleased with me, a sweet lilt to the fullness of his mouth.

He breaks our stare, glancing back and behind me, and I know I am released, free to move my eyes again to the floor. Once more, I study the lines of his shoes, trying to control my reaction to the sharp, stinging buzz against my ribs. Breathing deeply through the pain, I settle in, gripping the chair with my hands and closing my eyes.

On the insides of my eyelids, I still see the piercing green of his eyes. And hiding my face inside my hands, I slyly smile.

Because it is the vision of his eyes that has always grounded me.

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The first time I saw those eyes, it was across a room full of people at a hospital social hour. Contemplating the jagged edges of the ice cubes in my glass, I looked over the rim of my drink to see him staring at me, reddish-brown hair in a state of disarray and his eyes focused so intently on my face.

I remember gulping, something magnetic and pulling at me. Unable to look away, all I could do was turn slightly, compelled to put my body between us, trying desperately to hide my instant arousal from the colleagues who were still talking to me, unaware as they were that the world had shifted beneath my feet. I only broke his stare reluctantly, uncertainly, too overwhelmed to let him hold my attention so completely for a moment longer.

It wasn't until much later in the evening, after so many of the other doctors had already headed home that I found myself face to face with him, his body cast casually across the bar as he leaned against it. I ordered another drink, avoiding looking at him even as I felt him still staring at me.

Right up until the moment I felt his breath across my neck.

"I've never seen you here before," he said slowly, a smooth and husky voice that went straight to my cock again and I felt myself wincing at how fucking hard I was just because of his words.

Trying to calm my shaky breath, I turned my neck to find him standing just a whisper too close to me, something intimate in the posture of his body. Like we were lovers already.

I held out my hand, both frightened of and longing for his touch. "I just started last week. Jasper Whitlock. Psychiatry."

He grinned at me, a crooked smile that only turned up at the one side of his mouth. "Edward Cullen. Oncology."

When his hand touched mine, it was with a fuzzing blur of static, a rushing surge of feeling in my arm and flush of hot across my body. With our eyes still connected, we let our hands linger just a moment too long, his thumb caressing mine only a little inappropriately.

"It's nice to meet you," I managed to stammer out, dropping my hand and flexing it hard at my side.

He raised his drink and his eyebrow, clinking his glass against mine, as he agreed coolly, "It most certainly is."

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"Jasper, are you OK?" His voice is warm beside my ear but still cast with that hint of inflection, that tone that tells me he is still in his role, that he is dominating.

I shake off the fantasy of our first encounter, making myself present here and now. The buzzing is still audible behind me, but the prickling pain has receded. And I wonder exactly how long he has been calling me.

If he will be angry with me.

"I'm sorry, Sir."

He leans down and I see his eyes right in front of me, intense but consoling. Forgiving me. "It's alright, I'm not angry," he says reassuringly. "Just tell me how you're doing."

"Fine," I whisper.

The fire in his eyes slips for just a moment, and in that instant he is my Edward again. The man I've adored since that very first day. "If this is too much, you can tell me. It's not any ordinary scene. It turns me the fuck on that you're doing this for me, but truly…"

He is rambling, and even though it is not in character, I reach out and touch his face silently, my fingers slipping soft across the stubble there. "I'm fine, Sir. It's just easier if I space out a little."

My calling him "Sir" recalls him back to who he is. To what we are. He touches my fingers and replaces them on the chair before smiling his own silent thanks and slipping back into his role as my Master.

Breaking eye contact with me, he looks over my shoulder and nods.

And the buzzing continues.

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Edward and I saw each other from time to time after that first encounter, passing glances in hallways that lingered too long and muttered hellos in the elevator, static passing in the air and the space too tight and small.

At the next social hour, he stood again, his back to the bar, intensity in his gaze and something about him that told me he was alone.

And the idea of being so alone at a social hour made me shiver.

I excused myself from my colleagues under the pretense of getting a drink, my body tensing, a twitching itch to bring myself closer to him, to see if the electricity I had imagined in our touch was really real. Closing in on the bar, it was me who chose to stand too close to him this time, my hand brushing innocently across his thigh before I placed it in my pocket, catching the bartender's attention with my eyes.

As I ordered, I felt Edward's gaze burning through me, his body inching closer until his hand traced a long line from my hip to the bottom of my ribs beneath my jacket. My breathing ceased, something vaguely electric in his touch even through my clothes, and I couldn't help but wonder how intense it might be when our bodies were naked.

"Would you care to join me?" he asked quietly.

I stared back at the people I had come with, noticing how their conversation had closed behind me, no one taking notice of where I had gone. I stuttered, hesitant all of a sudden in the wake of the crackling between our bodies.

"I think I'd like that."

And again he smiled at me.

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We talked for half the night, hovering over a small table in a darkened corner of the room. It took all of my attention to remember that we were at a work function, that for all it seemed like we were cloaked in our own shared intimacy, we were really on display for anyone to see.

Not that I cared much if anyone was looking.

I had come out when I was in college, a formality really, since I'd known for as long as I could remember that only other boys had ever caught my eye. I'd never lied about it or tried to hide it in the years since, but it still wasn't something I tended to wear on my sleeve. A part of me wondered idly what my new colleagues would think of me, hovering so close to another man.

And it occurred to me only then that I didn't know if Edward was out. Or if he was even gay.

Edward's orientation had seemed so clear to me, both from the way he had initially looked at me and from the crackling intensity between our bodies. But in spite of my earlier boldness, in that moment I found myself entirely too embarrassed to ask.

And so we talked all around the subject that most consumed my thoughts, my undeniable attraction to the self-possessed, startlingly intelligent man before me. To all appearances, we could have been mere acquaintances, old friends, sitting there, leaning in just a little too eagerly, just a little too thin of a slice of air between our hands.

Instead we talked about everything else, friends and families and circumstances that had brought us to our present jobs.

And the more he told me, the more I became intrigued.

He lived alone, so many of his stories revolving around the things he did by himself - quiet nights at home, favorite books and movies and TV shows. And I couldn't shake the vision of him, an island in a sea of people passing by. He spoke of a beloved sister, close family. And no one else.

And I wondered what kind of connection he could ever have to me.

What kind of leap it might have taken for him just to speak to me.

As drink after drink slowly made their way through our hands, I watched his face and the subtle motions of his mouth, the thin veneer of his smoldering, overconfident gaze cracking to reveal the quiet, almost shy man underneath.

And everything I saw, every layer peeled back only drew me further in.

At some point, Edward sighed, glancing at his watch. "It's late," he said heavily.

As I took in the time, I was surprised, amazed that it had flown by so quickly. He began to reach for his jacket at the same time that I reached for mine, our fingers brushing, that same deep fuzz of static and longing.

Wordlessly, we walked to the exit together, my hand raised in a quick wave of parting to the people I had come with before stepping out into the silent cold outside.

He stood just outside the door, waiting and fidgeting, eyes darting down at the ground almost nervously.

When I joined him, he looked at me with that same smoldering stare from earlier, only with a little hint of hesitation and worry rising up around its edges. I placed myself too close before him, mere inches separating our lips and hips, my cock already straining from the proximity alone.

"I don't usually do this kind of thing," he said too quickly. His voice was a rushing, anxious mumble, its shaky undertones belying the overwhelming confidence he had once projected. "You have no idea how unusual, and normally I would never - "

I quieted him, putting my hand to his lips, the shock of the touch so intimate as it rocketed through me. His eyes widened, the sexy smolder behind them fading to surprise.

And I took a chance, considering all that I did not know. Still with my finger pressed to the fullness of his mouth, deep jolts of connection pulsing through me from the place where my skin met his, I whispered quietly, "I feel it, too."

Slowly, waiting for him to resist or push me off, I let my hand drift soft from his mouth across the jagged line of stubble to the edge of his jaw, finally resting where his pulse beat fast against his neck. And then, so, so carefully, I pulled my body closer to his, our eyes still holding as our lips brushed tentatively, hesitantly.

He trembled just a tiny bit as I pressed my mouth against his for the second time, before finally letting go, exhaling fully, wrapping his hands around my waist. His body was so responsive, a shuddering embrace as our mouths met, parting wetly, tongues moving harder over the lines of fleshy muscle and the sweetness of his breath inside my lungs.

When he finally pulled back, it was with a deep look of smoldering desire and happiness and fear all mixing in his eyes.

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The first time we made love, weeks later, it was a similarly hesitant thing, so many emotions rolling through him, while all I felt was ecstasy. When his body pushed into me, the deep and rushing fullness overwhelming me, I felt like I was home, possessed by the man who hovered naked over me.

We kissed hard as he pressed deeper, stretching my body, and I thought in my mind that this must be what it was like to be owned completely by another person, his strong arms on either side of me. His belly brushed my own painfully straining erection with every stroke, pleasure building thick inside me.

"Don't you dare come yet," he muttered darkly against my lips and I groaned, fighting to suppress the dangerous surge of feeling, turned on in spite of myself by the way his voice had gone strangely commanding.

As he pumped harder and deeper into me, pushing me past the edge of where I felt confident I could contain myself, I saw a dark wave of possession pass across his eyes. It scared and thrilled me as he claimed me, thrusting hard once more before his head snapped back, the muscles in his neck straining.

"Now, baby," he growled as his eyes met mine again, that same look of ownership and mastery that I didn't recognize just yet.

When I did come, my screams of his name echoed off the walls, deep spurts landing hard on our chests as my whole body shook, white-hot flashes rushing hard across my clenched-shut eyes.

Edward, for his part, came silently, the only sign being the look of intense pleasure on his face and the arch of his body, his cock pulsing hot inside of me. He collapsed on top of my chest, long hard kisses exchanged between us, and a look of wonder replacing that of domination on his flushed face.

I touched his cheek then, intrigued and captivated by his beauty as I basked, but he pulled my hands away, kissing my knuckles quietly.

And then he thanked me. Even though at the time I had no idea what he could possibly be thanking me for.

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The buzzing across my ribs stops, and I pull myself back into the present. The artist behind me nudges lightly at my shoulder, his voice urging me to take a break. I blink rapidly, trying to fathom just how long I have been sitting there, sweet memories of my lover before he became something different.

Something more.

I hear his voice from another corner of the room, low and husky, "The outline is finished, Jasper. It looks fucking fantastic."

Then he adds, just a little more quietly, a hint of some deep emotion seeping through the cracks in his veneer. "I can't wait for you to see it."

The lines of ink he is embedding in me are still a mystery, and I blush, a secret tingling shame that I am allowing him to all but brand me. Like cattle.

I remember then that it was that first time that we made love when first I saw his ink, the ways in which he had branded his own body. The knowledge that he has done this to himself, that on some level I am becoming more like him by allowing him to trace his own secret image into me does something strange to my body and my heart.

"You really must get up," he says, closer to my ear now, and I comply. My arms unwrap themselves from the chair, a rush of blood to my head as I stand, my knees almost buckling from sitting in one position for so long.

As he has done so many times before, he comes up and brushes his hands across the points of soreness then, somehow knowing exactly what I need.

But that's his job now.

"Walk around a bit," he tells me, no hint of question or suggestion in his voice. This is a command. I pull myself off of the chair where I had been subconsciously leaning, half-gripping it just to keep myself standing, and I stretch, crossing the length of the room slowly.

Staring slyly at his chest, I realize that I can just barely make out the lines of ink beneath his snug white t-shirt, the black outline of the lion set hard across his heart.

He had explained it to me once as we we'd lain there, panting, holding softly to each other's bodies in the lingering moments after.

"It's the Cullen family crest," he'd said quietly, my fingers tracing loving patterns over the curving edges of the lion's head, the jagged line of clovers at its feet. Staring at it now through his t-shirt, I remember how the ink had stood out so vividly across the smooth white of his skin.

His eyes flashing with intensity, he had drawn my gaze to look at him, his hand stilling mine against his heart. He had continued then, slowly but fiercely, "Because my family is the most important thing to me."

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I pace around for a few minutes, excusing myself to the bathroom briefly before returning to my seat. He hands me a glass of water and looks at me imperiously, an unspoken expectation that I will drink it. I down it quickly before handing it back to him, a thin trickle of water slipping slowly down my chin.

It is only then that he kisses me, a rare gesture on a day like today, for all that it can be quite common on others. I drink it in like water, necessary, filling me.

The kiss is all too brief, too chaste, the fire behind it waning swiftly as he nudges me gently to return to my position.

And then the numbing buzzing begins again.

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We existed in our own bubble for weeks, slow and easy love-making, stolen kisses in darkened corners of the hospital between shifts. And yet I couldn't help but feel like there was something he was hiding from me, something burning deep behind his eyes, closely guarded, still a secret to me.

He had utterly enthralled me, my nights away from him spent in lost longing for the warm touch of his body, the quiet company with which he graced me. His presence in my lonely room, the way he looked at me. His laugh and his smile and the way that everything in his language told me that he was happy with me.

That maybe, for all that he was hiding something from me, he might care for me.

That maybe he might love me the way that I loved him.

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The needle buzzes hard across my spine for a moment and I am jerked out of my reverie, a tiny whimper escaping my lips before I bury my head in my hands again, breathing tightly through the unexpected wave of pain.

But it is still nothing to the pain I have endured in other ways.

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His secret crashed in upon our happiness on a day like any other, my curiosity for the first time of many bringing me such excruciating pain.

I arrived at his house early. A surprise.

I still recall the way my hand paused slowly on the doorknob, my heart rising at the thought of seeing the man who had become the world to me without even thinking he might not be prepared to see me. That I might not be prepared for what I was about to see.

The door was uncharacteristically unlocked. In my own naivety I was thrilled, delighted that my surprise would be complete. But not as complete as my horror would be.

Having seen his car parked outside, I knew that he was home. I closed the door behind me quietly, slipping into the entryway where he had come to meet me so many times before. Only he was nowhere to be seen.

Each room I explored came up empty, no sign of him in his study or his bedroom even.

And then I heard strange breathing, a slapping of skin on skin.

And my heart fell out from beneath me.

I raced up the stairs, seizing hard upon the one door I had never opened before, shoving it violently, scarcely able to see through the haze of betrayal and rage.

And yet still I had been unprepared for the sight before me.

The two men fucking in the middle of the room were both strangers to me, the one bound tightly to a sawhorse with a gag in his mouth, his arms tied harshly to his back as the other man drilled into him. My eyes whipped around, taking in leather and harsh implements, straps and canes and chains, metal bars and all sorts of things that overwhelmed me, repulsing and enthralling me.

My own erection pushed hard against my jeans, something primal awaking inside of me at the same time that I thought I might wretch.

His secret.

His possession and his shame.

Edward sat directly across from me in a red leather chair, his eyes burning with intensity as he focused completely on the scene before him. He positively growled as a ringing slap echoed through the room, and I turned just in time to see the bound man being pounded into, his ass red with the sting of the blow and his moans of pain and pleasure surrounding me.

I tore my eyes away, my arousal painful now even as another kind of pain threatened to destroy me.

My lover watched the scene unfolding before me, the cock that had been inside me now inside his hands, his fist flying as a look of pure rapture overtook his face. That same look of possession he had had when he was coming inside me broke across his mouth, his jaw dropping, tendons straining.

My whimper of pain added a new layer of sound to the symphony of sex and agony, and he finally turned to me, his eyes connected with mine in horror even as his orgasm, too close to restrain, erupted hot across his chest.

For the second time, the vision of his eyes was burned into me in that moment. Want and revulsion and satisfaction and pain.

I turned, running hard to the bathroom across the hall, the door slamming shut behind me as I emptied my stomach endlessly, dry heaves and visions of leather and slapping bodies and my lover combining excruciatingly.

When the waves of pain began to subside, still present but diminished, I wiped the sickly sheen of sweat from my forehead, trying to push back everything at least long enough to escape. To flee from the vision of that room and of my lover inside me, twisting pain to know I might never feel that completion again.

He was waiting for me when I emerged, all my walls up, the isolation of my life before he claimed it rising hard to keep him from affecting me. His body was curled up, a long line of pain with his back against the wall. I ignored him, pushing forward and wiping a lonely, frustrated tear away, stalking blindly for the stairs when his hand closed around my arm, pulling me back toward him.

"Let me explain," he cried, and I looked up, so many of my defenses buckling, rippling at the desperation on his face.

"What can you possibly have to say to me?" I asked dully, still trying to shut down the parts of me that longed for him to succeed. To somehow allow him to explain this all away to me.

He collapsed again into himself. "You must hate me. I'm sure you're horrified now that you know."

"Have you been fucking them the entire time you've been fucking me?" I asked, needing to know, for my health if for no other reason.

The horror in he eyes eclipsed anything I had seen in them before. "God no, Jasper. I haven't - I haven't touched anybody. Not since the first time I saw you. Nobody but you."

My body sank down to the floor, shocked and relieved. Horrified and intrigued. "Then what the fuck was that, Edward?"

"What I am. What I was. What I'm trying not to be."

The touch of his hand on my cheek and the shame in his eyes were all the argument I needed to convince me to stay. To hear him out at least.

Because in spite of it all, the electricity of his touch was still the same. Was still everything to me.

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Our conversation stretched out over hours, tense and hesitant.

"I've been in the BDSM lifestyle since I was in college," he admitted. "I've never had a relationship outside of it. Never - never had sex outside of it. Never made love," he whispered, his eyes connecting with mine. "Not before you.

"Because it wasn't fucking, Jasper. It was never fucking to me."

My walls cracked one by one. "Me neither."

"I tried. For you I tried. I broke off an arrangement I'd had for years, even. But it's something - it's all I know, Jasper."

"Which one were you?" I asked, the vision of the two men still burned into me, only it had twisted into a fantasy of Edward fucking me, my body strapped tight and immobile. My pleasure at his mercy.

And I was hard again.

"The Dom," he whispered. "Always the Dom." He looked at me again, regret and longing. "You probably want nothing to do with me now, and I respect that. But if you could give me another chance, I'd try again. For you, Jasper, I'll try. You make me feel things…"

As he trailed off, hope rose in me.

"You do the same to me," I responded shyly, still unsure if I could let my heart out of its protective cage. If I could open myself up to the kind of ache I'd known when I walked into that room.

"Let me try," he plead. Only it sounded like a command, the tone of his voice on a direct line to my cock and I wondered what it would be like if he ordered me to do something.

If he ordered me to suck him off right now.

And as degrading as it was, I knew I would.

"Do you think it would work?" I asked uncertainly. "If it's something you crave. Something you need."

His head fell into his hands, and my whole body hurt for him. "I'm so fucking weak, Jasper. It's the only thing that gives me control. I try not to need it, I do."

The vision of him standing over me ripped hot across my mind again, my hard-on throbbing.

"If you need it, Edward," I started hesitantly, waiting for him to look at me. "Maybe you could let me try to be what you need?"

When his eyes met mine they were hungry and lustful and deeply, darkly green.

"You would do that for me?" As he spoke, I saw the part of him that he had spent so long trying to hide from me, the very intensity of it turning me on.

Even though there were still things that were bothering me.

"I'd _try_," I clarified, trying to show with my tone that we weren't quite finished talking about the hard part. About what I had seen.

A troubled expression passed over his face, such darkness and sadness and shame.

"You have no idea what it felt like to walk in on you like that," I whispered, the pain still rippling.

"I'm so sorry, Jasper. So sorry. I never meant for you to - I thought - "

"You thought it wouldn't ruin me?" I asked, disbelieving. "You don't - do you have any idea how much I care for you?"

I felt my own vulnerability, my heart in my throat, still waiting for some kind of rejection.

Until I felt his cold hand closing so softly, so tentatively over mine.

"If it's half as much as I care for you, it would be more than I deserve," he said quietly, warm green eyes meeting mine, pleading. "I've never been so happy as I am with you."

I shook my head. "Then I just don't understand how you could do something like that behind my back. Why you couldn't just talk to me."

"I was so embarrassed," he admitted dejectedly. "You make me happy, Jasper. But it was like there was something I still needed. Something _driving _me. Like I couldn't control myself." He winced, that same sort of pain that almost echoed mine.

"I'm trying to understand," I said, wanting to take that pain from his face. Wanting to forgive him.

Steeling myself, I let my other hand clasp over our joined ones, his skin still so cold beneath my touch as his eyes trained miserably at the ground.

When I spoke again, my voice was shaky.

"You couldn't do that kind of thing again. Not if this is going to work."

"I won't," he swore.

Then my stomach started doing excited flip-flops in spite of me.

"At least," I started, arousal sparking again in my abdomen at just the thought, "you couldn't do it again without me."

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Over the next few weeks, he introduced me to more of the intricacies of the life he had led before me. The life he hoped he might live _with_ me. In our discussions, we sorted out safe-words and limits, roles and expectations.

And I tried to figure out in my mind why every word he spoke about it intrigued me, aroused me, my cock existing in such a permanent state of arousal that we took each other daily.

And yet it was never enough.

Not until he owned me.

The first time we scened, I saw the fire that had always lingered in his eyes blaze hot, just barely under control. Bound and silenced, I gave myself to him, thrills at every touch, fear and pleasure mixing hot inside my abdomen as he worked my skin, leather and metal and the hotness of his hands.

I learned more about my own body that day than I had learned in the previous twenty years combined. I learned how it responded to his touch when my sight was taken away from me. That I could come from the teasing, glancing touches of his leather and his voice alone.

I learned that feeling him in my mouth while on my knees was as delicious as it was degrading, the two combining in my mind, completely intertwined from that point on.

More than anything else, though, I learned what it felt like deep in my abdomen to see him look at me with that fire in his eyes, and to know that it burned only for me. To hear him tell me that I pleased him.

And I came to crave that. To need him to control me just as badly as he did. And desperately, desperately to need to please him in that way.

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The needle leaves my skin again, silence ringing through the space. I look up, startled, realizing that the artist is beginning to pack up his things.

"Would you like to see it?" the stranger behind me asks, but my Master answers for me.

"Go ahead and dress it," he replies. He lowers his head then and breathes quickly in my ear, "It looks fucking fantastic. I can't wait to fuck you while looking at it."

A shiver of desire courses through me as I feel a still-gloved hand rubbing something slick across my skin before covering it.

I stand, taking my shirt from the chair where I left it and pulling it on loosely, trying not to let it rub across the sensitive area across my back. He guides me wordlessly to the exit, a single hand curled tight around my wrist.

The ride home is quiet, both of us sedate. Contemplative. There is still a small shock and burst of pride in me when I realize what has happened. What I have allowed him to do to me.

That I have allowed him to mark me.

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The first time he brought it up, I almost balked. He asked on a normal day, far away from the playroom, still holding each other in the quiet moments after making love. We had loved each other gently. Completely. No artifice or role-playing, no pain or uncertainty or elaborately choreographed scene.

Lying there, I traced his tattoo, still reverently, loving the hard feel of muscle and his skin, the light hairs that rose up between pale flesh and ink and skin.

"Have you ever thought of getting one?" he asked, his voice heavy with something unsaid.

I rolled over on my back, his hand following me to rest hot on my hip. "Not really. Though I certainly like this one on you."

My suggestive grin was reflected back at me, even as his mouth belied his tension over the question I felt sure he was working up to asking me.

"What would you think if I told you I wanted to mark you?" he asked quietly, eyes flashing darkly. "To sort of … brand you as mine?"

I'd heard of branding subs before, and the idea repulsed me, an image of searing flesh and hot metal and pain. "Not literally?" I asked hopefully and fearfully, pulling away from his touch and gathering the sheets around me.

"No …. a tattoo. Something … special to me." He looked up at me through his eyelashes, the eyelids heavy. "As part of a scene."

+-+-+-+

Still immersed inside of that scene, we arrive back at the house.

Staring at the mailbox and the dull white of the aluminum siding, I think again about the months that passed between his first asking me and my finally agreeing. While I never said no, I hemmed and hawed, went back and forth.

A part of me was honored that he would suggest it, proud and glowing that he would want to announce his possession so permanently. So visibly. The other part wondered where the line between Jasper the sub and Jasper the man really stood. If there even was a line anymore. If the distinction might somehow disappear if I allowed Edward as a Dom to exert such a hold on me.

Because collars and cuffs came off at the end of playtime.

Tattoos didn't.

I finally agreed after three months of his quiet reassurances, his little loving pleas. He convinced me on a regular afternoon, far removed from the playroom, his head perched soft on my chest as we sat together reading.

Slowly, gently he traced the space across my ribs, before saying quietly, "I'd want the mark on your back, I think."

"Edward," I warned, still unsure if I could do this. Still unsure if this was _me_.

He held my eyes with his, all the adoration that he held for me in these quiet times when it was just him and me. "It wouldn't just be about ownership, you know."

My heart raced, some blooming hope rising up in me, overshadowing my fear.

Seeing the softness in my features, the way my reservations were beginning to fall away, he sat up fully, taking my quivering hand in his. "It's ... what I have planned ... it's something for everyday, too. About what you mean to me."

"And what is that, exactly?" I asked, a smile spreading hard across my face because I already knew. There were so many ways we'd already told each other. Of course I knew.

"Everything," he vowed, just as seriously and vehemently as before.

The look on his face broke through to me, and I knew that I was his. In the playroom and everywhere else.

I knew I trusted him. Completely.

"Okay," I whispered.

And I was rewarded with an expression on his face that was pure joy.

+-+-+-+

I am jolted back to the present by the sound of his car door closing. Sighing, I release my seat belt and join him near the edge of the driveway, pulling myself back into the role I have agreed to play today.

The role I relish and embrace.

We walk up the flagstone path to the front door together, his hand on my wrist, still leading. He fiddles with the old and tricky lock on the front door, finally getting it to catch, and gesturing once it is open that I should enter first.

I make it only just beyond the entryway before I feel his arms, grabbing me roughly and turning me. His lips are hard and hot on mine, so much passion and fire and lust in his kiss. It speaks as ever of honor and gratitude and need.

"I'd throw you up against that wall and fuck you there, only I can't because of your back," he says in a hiss.

He glances up and down my body, taking it in hungrily,

"Meet me in the playroom in fifteen minutes," he growls, and then he walks away.

I breathe in and out deeply, knowing the scene continues today until he decides it is over. That I have ceded control to him completely. With nervous hands, I pour a glass of water and gulp it down, my mouth suddenly dry, anticipation gripping me.

For five minutes more, I busy myself about the kitchen until I run out of reasons to delay.

I climb the stairs slowly, anticipation building in the deepest parts of me that crave the opportunity to serve him this way. Arriving at the doorway that once filled me with such anger and such fear, I turn the knob, surprised to find that I am shaking.

As I have done so many times before, I strip, placing all my clothes in a basket near the door. Naked, I fall to my knees on a single cushion in the middle of the floor, eyes down, heart leaping, my arousal already strong.

The handle on the door turns slowly and the thudding motion inside my chest picks up, everything racing. As the door closes behind him, his heavy breathing fills the room, clothing me. Surrounding and soothing me even as every muscle in my body comes alive, waiting for his instructions. Living for his touch.

I kneel still, my whole body tensed as I sense him circling me, admiring my posture and the lines of ink covered by the bandage.

He comes closer on the next pass, and I see the edges of his bare feet, the hem of his jeans. I suppress a shudder as the currents of air move around me, stirred up by his pacing and his breathing. Finally, _finally_, I feel his hand brush roughly across my neck as he stands before me.

"Stand," he instructs me, and I pull up to my feet immediately. His fingers trace down over the bandage and I worry for a moment that he will tear it off. He tenses, and I see the war within him, but his need to care for me wins out, and his hand drifts away.

"Watching you in that chair was sheer torture to me," he breathes. "Knowing that you're _mine_, that you were accepting my mark and not being able to touch you. Watching that gorilla with his hands all over you.

"Tell me again who you belong to," he demands.

"You, Master," I breathily reply.

His hand on my jaw lifts my eyes up and he kisses me, hungrily.

He pulls away as quickly as he attacked me, his feet still circling as my eyes return to the ground. My breath is coming so fast now I worry I may start to hyperventilate, my need so great for him to take me and own me and claim me.

His next words push another level of thrill through me. "On the table on all fours, Jasper."

I walk too quickly to the table in the corner of the room, taking up the position he has demanded of me. He moves slowly, deliberately, letting me feel the vulnerability and possession as he makes to secure my wrists and ankles with the straps he has attached there.

"You look so enticing, bared for me this way. I could do whatever I wanted to right now, you know. You're completely at my mercy."

I gulp, knowing this is true. Knowing that I trust him to use my body in ways that will delight us both.

Slowly, his steps bring him back behind me, and I am straining, desperate for him to touch me.

The first gentle slap of a flogger across my skin comes as a surprise. These are gentle strokes. Teasing, even, building up to pleasure. I know full well that I have pleased him. That he will only be taking me to the heights of ecstasy today.

"I want to hear your voice today," he whispers, and I moan the next time the suede caresses my flesh. Over and over this continues, the strokes increasing in intensity, bordering on pain but never crossing into it, my cock straining and everything in my body concentrating on this touch. The flogger descends to my thighs and I feel something slick at my opening, warm plastic intruding, eliciting another series of shivers and quiet noises of pleasure from me.

He pushes deeper into me, asking roughly, "Do you like that, Jasper?"

"Yes, Master," I pant, every nerve in my body alive. Leaving the object embedded in me, his hand finally touches my cock and I almost explode on contact, a deep shuddering groan passing through me as I stiffen, working hard to fight back my release. I will not let him be disappointed in me today. Not today when I have given myself to him in this whole new way.

For long torturous minutes he teases me, gentle blows across my backside and the feeling of my ass still opening around his toy, the slick presence of his fingers on my painful arousal nearly breaking me. I focus on everything and anything, multiplication tables flashing hot across my mind as the pleasure building threatens to ruin me.

"This is how tortured I was today, watching another man's hands on your back. Watching him mark you for me."

And then all of a sudden it all stops, the flogger and the touch of his hands upon me, his toy ripped from me, and I am empty and bereft, my body shaking, and a desperate, wanting howl tearing through me.

His bare feet make a padding, quiet sound across the floor. Three more times he circles me, my eyes clenched tightly as the closeness of my climax fades from me, all of my control bent on returning my body to a calmer state.

Finally he is before me, his hands moving slowly to pull at his zipper, revealing his cock to me and a whole new pang of desire hits me, painful in its intensity, and I know then that this is what I have wanted. What I have been longing for.

He stands proudly before me, erect and long and thick, the head purple with need and drop of liquid at the tip.

"Is this what you want?" he asks huskily. "Answer truthfully."

"Yes, Master. Please," I beg.

"Do you want me in your mouth?"

"Yes, Master."

"Then you may." He steps closer, pushing the head of his dick against my lips and I lick at it greedily, tasting him, knowing I was meant to pleasure him this way. He sighs quietly, his pleasure always silent, the opposite and the complement of mine, my noises so hard for me to suppress.

"Open," he commands, and I do so eagerly, feeling him pushing into my mouth. I close my lips around him, savoring the taste and feel and wrapping my lips around him as he starts to fuck my face slowly.

"Is this how you want me?" he asks, withdrawing suddenly.

"However it pleases you, Sir," I respond, knowing full well that I would love to make him come this way, but that I would rather feel him pulse and find his pleasure inside me. Knowing the depths of satisfaction that come from feeling him fucking me.

"How you please me," he mumbles, almost inaudibly.

He moves to the back of the table and I tense again, my heart soaring to know that I may yet get my wish.

His hand falls on my ass teasingly, a singing sting while the other works more slickness into my opening. He slaps at me three more times, my body shuddering in pleasure each time, before I hear the wet noise of his hand on his own cock, lubricating himself for me and I push back against the hand that is still pushing hard into my body, silently begging for more.

All sensation leaves me one more time and I kneel there, panting, anticipation and every nerve in me waiting, soaring, before he finally impales me with his body, and I roar. The fullness of his body in me is a miracle every time, and after the way he worked me, teased me, taunted me, I am practically singing, the magic of his body beautifully destroying me.

"I can see where I marked you from here," he grunts roughly, one hand holding my hip steady as the other moves across my back. I am moaning, almost ready to beg him to touch me, my release building so quickly I am worried I will embarrass him. I clench my eyes again tightly, fighting back the feeling and reveling in it, my whole body stretching with every deep thrust inside of me.

"You."

_Thrust._

"Are."

_Thrust._

"Mine."

_Thrust._

The pleasure is so hot I know I can't contain it anymore and I yelp, the intensity of it ready to claim me, my body his, my pleasure his, and he fucks me faster, harder, more and more guttural noises falling out of me. Finally he grunts out the words I have been waiting for, his fingers just barely touching me, one long stroke down the length of my cock as I try not to scream.

"Come for me, Jasper."

The whole world explodes around me, everything hot and numb and my eyes blinded by the level of pleasure and completion rushing through me. I feel myself spill violently, endlessly, a hot mess on the leather table below me, even as my Master is emptying into me, his cock pulsing hard and harsh before he collapses onto me.

We stay there for some time, a depth of intensity and feeling that is rare for this kind of scene. It is the love-making of our day to day and the most intense kind of play all wrapped up into one, our separate lives merging, and I am almost overcome.

After long minutes, he pulls out of me, and I grunt quietly. Silently, he makes his way to each corner of the table, releasing me, my bonds unshackled one by one.

When all four ties have been undone, he holds out a hand to help me, and I climb down, sore in delicious ways, my feet and wrists just a little numb. Wordlessly, he rubs the parts of me that were chafed by my restraints, and I think to myself that I love him just a little bit more every time he takes care of me this way.

He moves to the corner of the room where the little black box resides, opening it and beckoning me forward. I know then and only then that the scene is broken, that we are Master and sub for only a few precious moments more.

"Hold out your wrist," he says intensely, and I obey. His fingers trace reverently across the leather strap there, the symbol of his dominance over me, and of my acceptance of it. "You have served me exquisitely," he whispers, and I swell with pride.

"Thank you, Master."

"Thank you."

With that he releases the cuff, and I feel all the more naked without it. He places it inside the box, passing his hands over the two other circles contained there. He lifts them out, slowly, lovingly. I hold my hand out and he places the first one inside it before presenting his own hand to me.

I take the little platinum band and look up for the first time in so many hours, meeting his gaze fully. As his equal. "My Master and my partner," I say quietly, pushing his wedding ring back onto his hand.

"My partner," he repeats, dressing me in mine.

We kiss once, chastely, before he exits the room and I am left there alone. I dress quietly, contemplatively, only bothering with my boxers and my jeans. I reflect again on how I crave the time we spend here, the nature of our relationship when we give ourselves to each other this way. But at the same time, I am so very eager to see my lover again.

+-+-+-+

I find him sitting on the floor, his back leaning against the side of the bed, his head in his hands. He is in our bedroom, waiting for me. My heart pangs for him just a little bit more, if that is possible, so much emotion rising up in me to see him sitting there, in the space where we love each other equally.

When he hears me enter, he turns to meet my gaze, all the fire swept away and just a cool oasis of green, all the love I feel returned to me.

I sit myself beside him, placing my arm around his shoulder and kissing his forehead reverentially.

"So what did you think?" he asks cautiously.

"Amazing," I breathe. Because it was, for all my trepidation going into it. "Was it everything you hoped it might be?"

His eyes flash brightly. "And more," he says, kissing me gratefully, his hand on my chest in a gentle, tentative touch. I remember that he never quite knows how to touch me as we transition out of our scene, the role so hard sometimes for him to leave.

"Though," I begin hesitantly, and I see concern creep up around his mouth. I kiss it reassuringly, trying to make him feel safe, letting him know that I accept everything that has happened today. "Could I finally see it?"

All of his concern drops away and a look of pure joy passes across his face. He stands eagerly, pulling me with him as he takes my hand, fingers intertwined. And I am as shocked as ever, constantly amazed by how different his leading me this way feels from how it is when he is dominating me. The subtle cues of our hands holding each other equally instead of his hand singularly pulling at my wrist.

Standing before the full-length mirror, I admire the sight of our bare chests, his pressed gently to the back of me, his arms coming up to encircle me before placing a single kiss to my shoulder. He steps back incrementally, his hands coming up to pull away at the bandage that covers his mark. Ever so gently, he pulls it away, his breath heavy and his eyes wide and appreciative as I watch him in the mirror. A look of pure love washes over his features when the tattoo is fully revealed to him, and he meets my eyes, looking up and over my shoulder at me.

"Turn," he instructs quietly, and I do so, smirking to hear the difference in his voice when he urges me to do things this way, versus the way he does when we are in the playroom.

He reaches onto our dresser to grab a handheld mirror, and he presents it to me.

And the floor falls out from under me completely.

"Edward," I whisper, taking in the curl of ink on the back of my shoulder blade, the long, wide circle sweeping all the way across my ribs to the edge of my spine. The mark taking up the expanse of my back behind my heart.

When my eyes dart up to meet his, I see the mixture of pride and uncertainty, his need for me to tell him this is OK.

"I can't - I can't believe," I start, overwhelmed by just how much this means to me.

He stands, his front facing me, and in the mirror I take in the matching marks, mirror reflections of each other. The twin lions and clovers, the outstretched hand of the Cullen crest.

"Do you like it? Is it OK?" he asks anxiously, and I watch the lines of worry overtake his face.

I reach up with one hand to try to smooth the worry away, my other hand pulling his neck to me so I may press my lips to the line of stubble on his cheek, our mouths brushing wetly in a soft and loving kiss.

"It's perfect," I whisper, still sort of disbelieving.

Our eyes still hold each other's as I look up, admiring the perfectly matched designs, knowing now that when he holds me, my back to his chest, that they will line up exactly, our hearts and families intertwined.

"I told you once that family was the most important thing to me," he whispers. "You're my family, Jasper. That's what this means to me."

"And Edward," I respond, the emotion almost too much for me as a single tear slides down my cheek, "you're everything to me."

We hold each other close then, his hands moving hesitantly, carefully, so as not to brush across the tender skin where he has marked me.

And all over again, it shocks me to know how much I have found in this man. My lover. My Master. My husband and my partner.

"I love you, Jasper," he intones quietly.

And I kiss him, knowing all over again that I have marked him as permanently as he has me.


End file.
